Pull One Thread: How Systems Thinking Can Transform Vermont

Have you ever noticed how everything in a community is connected? Pull one thread and the whole fabric shifts. To see, ponder, and respect systems means understanding community needs from all perspectives—recognizing the gaps, the opportunities, and the connections that others might miss. This is systems thinking.

I have always been a systems thinker. As a working mother, small business owner, pediatrician, and community advocate, I see common threads everywhere. I look at the whole spectrum—ages, economics, education, health, and community resources—across boundaries and across generations.

Here are a four examples of what systems thinking looks like in practice:

1. Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment. Funding for substance abuse prevention and treatment flows primarily through the Department of Mental Health and goes mostly toward adult services. But I see the need for prevention at far younger ages and far more widespread levels. It's so important to me that I created a youth mental-health nonprofit established to illuminate the reality among youth with mental-health struggles. Proper funding in this area could help boost the safety net for children and adolescents—including Boys and Girls Clubs, swim lessons, after-school recreation programs and clubs, tutoring, and juvenile justice infrastructure to keep children out of the system. Children are resilient to a point and boosting their sense of self and community will protect them from unhealthy paths. 

2. Connecting Generations. Many studies have shown that older people do well when they can interact with kids, animals, and nature. Here in Vermont, we have declining school enrollment, a need for after-school child care, and an aging population. The opportunity is right in front of us—connect our schools more regularly with older community members. That might look like mentorships, in-school volunteers, and instructors for after-school clubs. Providing the means to connect our youth and our aging population engages both in a positive and meaningful way.  

3. Child Care and Early Education. We need more after-school child care. How about investing in technical education and infrastructure to prepare more child-care providers and early-childhood educators to staff universal pre-K programs in communities across our state?  Two needs, one solution.

4. Health Care and Emergency Services. In the past ten years, we have seen more emergency room visits for substance abuse, mental illness, and self-harm related diagnoses than ever before. This has occurred while our safety net for addiction care, housing support, mental-health direct services, and juvenile justice infrastructure have faltered dramatically. These trends are connected. I see an opportunity in reviving the services that would keep people out of the emergency department and allow them to get the care they need—when they need it (before it’s a crisis) and where they need it (in their own communities).

Address addiction early, support families with child care, keep people out of emergency rooms, spend wisely, and build the safety nets our community deserves. Systems thinking is at the heart of everything I stand for. Vermont doesn't need more piecemeal efforts—it needs new leadership and a new way of thinking that sees the whole picture and acts on it. That's what I'll bring to Montpelier.